It's hard to say what exactly makes a work of art "good" or not, because so much of it depends on perspective. To me, a song/band is good when your gut reaction is to want to be a part of it, whether by singing along or air-guitaring all over the place. When you can't help but bang your head, or drum your fingers, or bop along or what have you...that's what I'd call good.
Conversely, if a song has absolutely no effect on me whatsoever, I'd probably think it wasn't good.
With the air-guitaring in mind, may I present to you, some of my buddies from Canada, Electro Quarterstaff. Categorically, they're progressive thrash metal, but it's more fun to say they're four righteous guitar/bass virtuosos and an insanely good drummer. Their songs are instrumental, which really showcases the guitar players' tremendous skill - totally righteous riffs. It's complicated, technically proficient, and heavy as all-get-out. AND, they don't take themselves too seriously - they like to poke fun at the conventions of the genre (check out their song "The Waltz of the Swedish Meatballs"):
http://www.myspace.com/electroquarterstaff
Covering the Dr Wily theme song! (It's sort of unfair to them to be posting a cover and not original songs as well, but I just love this)
for the record,"air-guitar" is recognized by Spellcheck, and that is awesome.
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You write, "if a song has absolutely no effect on me whatsoever, I'd probably think it wasn't good." Does that mean there are no objective standards of quality? If you don't like Bach, does that mean Bach sucks?
ReplyDeleteIs virtuosity a mark of good art?
And of course "air-guitar" is in the spell-checker; it's an ancient word. I was doing air-guitar contests over 20 years ago--back when I had hair long enough to pass for David Lee Roth.
Seems pretentious and a wank fest, i hate this kind of metal.Not to mention gimmicky, feels like metal for people who don't like metal.
ReplyDeletei'm a jerk with music, sorry. The fact that you cite the musicianship as a main reason to listen seems to give the band little emotional/real worth. Beethoven's powerful, but not overtly complex arrangements speak volumes more then the most complex arrangement.
spetsnaz - I am highly amused that you think EQ is "pretentious and a wank fest," because that's sort of my opinion regarding most black metal. It takes itself so dreadfully seriously! but hey, like I said, it's all a matter of perspective, and I certainly respect yours. I also agree with your statement about complex arrangements - there are most definitely virtuousos that could use a dose of subtlety - Yngwie Malmsteen, for example, now that's who I'd call a pretentious wanker!
ReplyDeleteAndrew: Sure, there are "objective" standards of quality, but I'm wary of anything that claims to be objective. Who's deciding the standards by which something is judged to be good or not? Remember Longfellow being deemed "not good" and being shunned from the literary canon by those editors with agendas? Did that keep you from thinking Longfellow was good? Point being, be careful when others try to define "good" and "bad for you - make up your own mind!
Case in point - I think EQ is really good. Mr. Spetsnaz does not. Is one of us right and the other is wrong? Says who? And, ultimately, what does it really prove to argue over whether something is good or not? I mean, we could debate whether EQ is "good" til we turn blue, but since we have different ideas of what "good" is, we're probably never going to agree (which, btw, is a wonderful thing).
PS - spetsnaz, i'm a jerk with music too, no need to apologize : )
I'm not so much interested in this question of good and bad re the issue of canon formation. It's more that I'm curious about how art works and appeals to people--how we make judgments about works of art.
ReplyDeletePartly, there's a lot of status stuff going on with art. The music we listen to, the books we read (or say we read), the clothes we wear all make statements about social status. Some theorists (Pierre Bourdieu, for example) claim that's the whole of aesthetics--that all aesthetic judgments are about status codes. But that seems obviously false to me.
Over the years, I've learned that one reason why I didn't like this or that work of art was that I didn't understand it--I wasn't familiar with that style of art. I used to hate Henry James--and then I learned how to read him. And wow! He's incredible.
Neither EQ nor the other band does it for me, but given my knowledge of music, that says more about my preferences and experiences than it does about either band. In the same vein, you might not be able to hear the difference between an alt country band like Whiskeytown (that I'm listening to a lot recently) and some crappy country pop band.
Actually, for me, the more difficult question is identifying bad art. I find it pretty easy to explain why this or that work of art is objectively good--which I do often in class. But I have a harder time explaining why this or that work of art is objectively bad.
And for the record, we all know that there is such a thing as bad art. I sure know it. I've written a lot of it!